The Cross before Constantine: The Early Life of a Christian Symbol

by Bruce W. Longenecker

Overview

This book brings together, for the first time, the relevant material evidence demonstrating Christian use of the cross prior to Constantine. Bruce W. Longenecker upends a longstanding consensus that the cross was not a Christian symbol until Constantine appropriated it to consolidate his power in the fourth century.

Longenecker presents a wide variety of artifacts from across the Mediterranean basin that testify to the use of the cross as a visual symbol by some pre-Constantinian Christians. Those artifacts interlock with literary witnesses from the same period to provide a consistent and robust portrait of the cross as a pre-Constantinian symbol of Christian devotion.

The material record of the pre-Constantinian period illustrates that Constantine did not invent the cross as a symbol of Christian faith; for an impressive number of Christians before Constantines reign, the cross served as a visual symbol of commitment to a living deity in a dangerous world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451490305
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	08/01/2015
Pages:	244
Sales rank:	989,590
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Bruce W. Longenecker is professor of early Christianity and W. W. Melton Chair of Religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, having formerly taught in Britain at St. Andrews, Cambridge, and Durham Universities. Some of his recent books include The Lost Letters of Pergamum (2002); Rhetoric at the Boundaries (2005); and Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Greco-Roman World (2010).

Table of Contents

Preliminaries ix

1 The Cross in Its Place 1

2 The Cross and Non-Christian Society 21

3 The Cross in a Jewish Cradle 49

4 The Cross in Textual Images 61

5 The Cross in the Material Record 73

6 The Cross in a Pompeii Bakery 121

7 The Cross in the Literary Record 149

8 The Cross and Its Advocates 163

9 A Very Short Conclusion 185

Bibliography 189

Index of Subjects 207

Index of Modern Authors 215

Index of Ancient Sources 221

Index of Locations 231